A New Era (2013-Present)
General manager Masai Ujiri's first enormous move was to trade Andrea Bargnani, pursued not long after by Rudy Gay. Fans and media trusted that the trades would result in Toronto tumbling to the bottom of the association, expanding their odds of getting the top pick in the 2013 NBA Draft (expected to be Canadian swingman Andrew Wiggins, who had been enlivened by watching previous Raptor Vince Carter as a child). Notwithstanding, the trades served to arouse the club. Against desires, the Raptors completed the season with a 48– 34 record, a then-franchise record for wins. While they were unable to progress past the first round of the playoffs, losing to the Brooklyn Nets in a firmly challenged seven-diversion series, unmistakably the Raptors were back on the correct path. A second playoff appearance pursued amid the 2014– 15 season, alongside another record for wins in a season (49). Be that as it may, once more, the club was vanquished in the first round, this time being cleared by the Washington Wizards in four straight games. While Toronto's offense was reliably solid during season, reinforced by NBA Sixth Man of the Year grant victor Louis Williams, the defense was dangerous and unmistakably general manager Ujiri required redesigns here in the off-season. To improve the team's defense, Ujiri acquired swingman DeMarre Carroll, shot blocker and center Bismack Biyombo, veteran forward Luis Scola and the team's first Canadian player, backup point guard Cory Joseph from Pickering, Ontario. Joined with headliners DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, just as cutting-edge big man Jonas Valanciunas, the Raptors hoped to have their best team ever as they arranged to enter the 2015– 16 season. The last three were leftovers from the Bryan Colangelo period, yet it was just under Ujiri's management that they were encompassed by the correct players to advance their abilities. Likewise, head mentor Dwane Casey, another leftover from the Colangelo period, improved with each season and found the correct blend of tolerance and power in dealing with the team. The club began the 2015– 16 season with five straight wins and completed with the league's fourth-best overall record. The Raptors won a franchise-record 56 games, sent two players (Lowry and DeRozan) to the All-Star diversion — a game that was facilitated in Toronto without precedent for NBA history — and entered the playoffs as the second overall seed in the NBA's Eastern Conference. In the franchise's best season up until then, they vanquished the Indiana Pacers and after that the Miami Heat, making it to the Eastern Conference Finals out of the blue, where they lost to James' Cleveland Cavaliers, the inevitable champions.https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/TOR/ In September 2016, Ujiri's agreement as president was expanded, while Jeff Weltman ended up general manager. In 2016– 17, the Raptors won 51 games amid regular season play and ended up third in the Eastern Conference. The team crushed the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs yet lost in four straight games to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference elimination rounds. After another playoff result that did not coordinate the desires set in the regular season, clearly changes were required. In his post-season question and answer session, Ujiri discussed a "culture reset," and many thought about whether that implied changing team work force, including key free specialists like Serge Ibaka and Kyle Lowry, or supplanting the training staff.https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/toronto-raptors Coach Casey stayed in charge, and Ibaka and Lowry were re-signed to three year contracts. Casey and his staff established a totally new offensive framework, one increasingly lined up with the style of fruitful current offenses like the Golden State Warriors, accentuating ball movement and three-point shooting. Driven by Lowry and DeRozan, the Raptors before long embraced the change and moved to the top of the Eastern Conference with an 11-game streak of wins in February and March. Lowry and DeRozan were again picked to represent the Raptors at the yearly All-Star Game, with DeRozan casted a ballot in as a starter by fans. DeRozan additionally made franchise history on 1 January 2018, scoring a record 52 points against the Milwaukee Bucks. He was just the third Raptor to score in excess of 50 points in a season game, after Vince Carter (51) and Terrence Ross (51). The Raptors won 59 games amid regular season play, completing at the top of the Eastern Conference. Regardless of having the top seed in the meeting entering the playoffs, the Raptors battled again in the post-season. It took a hard-battled six-game series to move beyond the eighth-seeded Washington Wizards in round one. In the conference semi-finals, the club again tumbled to its adversary, the Cleveland Cavaliers, who eliminated the Raptors in four games. While the Cavs' triumph owed a lot to the heroics of headliner LeBron James, the reality remained that by and by Toronto had neglected to exploit a gigantic regular season execution. This disappointment brought about the finish of head coach Dwane Casey's tenure with the Raptors, despite the fact that he was a finalist for NBA coach of the year (he won the honor a month later). Nick Nurse, one of Casey's assistants, was named as head coach. In July, the Raptors traded DeRozan to the San Antonio Spurs for Kawhi Leonard, as a major aspect of a four-player exchange.